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23 June 2005

The story: Bruce Wayne, the only son of Thomas Wayne, a multi billionaire man of Gotham city, seek a way to revenge the death of his parents and to bring justice to the criminals. In the end, Batman must face his mentor, Rash Al Gul, who he believed is already dead, but now turned into criminal mastermind. Batman did great job to save Gotham city and "introduce" a new kind of fear to the bad guys. Also the start of cooperation between Comissioner Gordon and Batman.

The Good guys:

- Bruce Wayne (played by Christian Bale). Replacing his father, he is now the owner of Wayne Enterprise. With the intense training by Rash Al Gul, the leader of League of The Shadows on the top of the moutains on Tibet and awesome tools created by Lucius Fox, he is also known as Batman

- Alfred (played by Michael Caine). The loyal servant of Wayne family. We can consider Alfred as bruce's step father, because he is the one who guide and teach Bruce about the meaning of life and takes care of him, even in the bad times. Great job Alfred !

- Commisioner Gordon. You know the sentence "Good cop bad cop"? Well, this is the example of "good cop" sorrounded by "bad cop". Also a friend of Bruce's father, he is the one who in charge on the security of Gotham City.

- Lucius Fox (played by Morgan Freeman). One of ex directors in Wayne Enterprise, he is the one who creates lots of batman's gadget. When Bruce Wayne wants to visit "applied science department", there he met Lucius Fox. Bruce finds out that Lucius is indeed a good man, so he appointed Lucius as the president director of Wayne enterprises.

- Rachel Dawes. Bruce's close girl friend. well, you can say, girl-friend and also girlfriend. She is also the general attourney on Gotham City, replacing his dead boss (the previous general attourney). She thought Bruce was dead after missing without single news for 7 years. So, when Bruce is back...well, the romance is once again started...

The Bad Guys

- Rash Al Gul. Well, this man ...if I am allowed to say...is in gray area. But, since at the end, he becomes batman's enemy, I can say the he is a bad guy. Shame actually, since he is also the one who trained Bruce Wayne, specifically, in martial art and self control. Rash has crazy plan, to wipe out Gotham city with nerve gas which can bring total hallucination

- Dr Crane aka Scare crow. he is a psychologist, but he is also as crazy as his patients on Arkham's mental house. This guy loves to wear a scare crow mask while spraying a nerve gas, so whoever inhale this gas will see him as a scary monster. euff.. bad boy...

- Chill. A low level bastards who killed Bruce's parents. Eventually, he was shot after a trial by Falcone's man.

- Falcone. A high level criminal of Gotham City. Pity, he is also a victim of Dr Crane.... he is the first target of Batman in the early days.

The gadget

- Batmobile. A-W-E-S-O-M-E. This 7 letters word is the right word to describe Batman's ride. Designed as all terrained vehicle, previously prototyped by Lucius Fox as military vehicle. re-painted with black paint, equipped with many weapons (I only saw missiles, but I am not 100% sure), GPS control, after-burner. truly strong body, it can easily crush concrete walls, smash ordinary cars...and hey, it jumps too!

- batarang. A throwing weapon, crafted like a bat.

- Gun-robe (this is just how I name it). Shoot it, a long robe with spear head burst out. Batman use it to hook on ceilings, building walls, pilars etc to "fly". In the final scene, gun-robe is used to hook on the monorail used by Rash.

- Super camera. I don't know the exact name :) With this camera, batman can see through the wall. I believe this camera is also an infra red camera, so batman can see clearly in the dark.

The fight

I didn't see such a genius martial art choreography here....but perhaps a duel scene between Bruce and Rash sorrounded by black ninjas for the "graduation test" could be considered "nice". Sword play, hand to hand combat...not bad. Christian Bale seems already grab sufficient training during the making of Equillibrium, his previous movie. There, he did gun kata....

The visual effect

I can say, Batman Begins is minimalist about f/x. Everything is done with "real shot". However, the air view of Gotham City...i believe this is a CGI. And the bats? Not sure, maybe it is f/x too. Batmobile? it is real dude ! :) but of course, you won't find it armed with missile on the reality

22 June 2005

Yeah, as you might guess, this is a quick recap about the latest movie I watched this afternoon, Batman Begins. First impression, great ! The producer and director did a brilliant job to give a new style to tell the story about this midnight warrior with dark suit. Previously, I thought that only Joel Schumacher who can do such a job, but I was wrong...as it is proven by this movie. Anyway, the distributor (and the capital funder) is still Warner Brothers.... the big company behind block buster movies such as matrix (1,2,3), previous series of Batman. Sorry, i forgot the other titles :)

So, why I said "i love the way it's started?" Every super hero in comics has a beginning. This beginning, should we say in other word, background, motivation, reasons, every word you can imagine with more or less similar meaning, tells us how an ordinary man turns into a hero. In this case, Batman is exceptional. Not because his suit nor his tools, but if we look closely, he is hero with no superpower. And also, Bruce Wayne, start his double life as Batman to revenge the death of his parents. This transformation journey, from a man turns into "the fear for criminals", is truly a long, exhausted, thrilling, scary adventure (should I add another pathethic adjective?). personally, I would call Bruce Wayne a soft "psycho". But in the other hand, he can drive this mad aspect for good intention.

Everyone in his/her life, sometimes triggered by an event or occassion, turns into "something else". Not physically of course, but mentally. This could be a good news, but sometimes it becomes a bad news ( very bad sometimes, as you can see in nut house). The way I see it, it is somekind of the challenge of life. The difficulty level...well, entirely depends on your perceptions. For example, as we see on Bruce Wayne, he turns his deep anger into a motivation to uphold the justice. You, of course, possibly take another solution if you are at the same position like Bruce.

The conclusion is, fancy tools of Batman attract me too, but looking at transformation phase from Bruce Wayne into Batman brought the biggest interest of mine. I tried to take several important points from this kind of movie, hopefully to make me into a better person. And I hope, you too could learn something from this capped crusader-bat suited hero named "Batman".

PS: I love this quote "You must first defeat your own fear....." and this "I choose bat as symbol, because I want to share my fear with my enemies".

NB: "Didn't you get my memo?" :) Damn you Morgan, this is the funniest word I ever heard through out your film history :)